The Grays

this insanity is all over the place? Is it, Lauren, do you know?”

“Hold it.” Lauren could not believe what she was seeing. “Don’t move.”

An enormous dog had jumped onto the roof of the Callaghans’ car.

THIRTY-FOUR

THE DOG STARED STRAIGHT AT Conner, a long string of drool sliding out of its panting jaws.

“Jesus,” Dan said.

“That’s Manrico,” Katelyn said. “That’s the Keltons’ dog.”

“Conner, what’s happening?” Lauren asked.

Conner took a step back.

The dog jumped off the roof, came toward him.

“Don’t look in his eyes,” Conner said.

Manrico started toward them.

As he had with the people who had gotten like this, Conner tried to send Manrico calming thoughts, but the dog kept leaping through the snow, coming right toward him.

At that moment, a deer—a graceful, careful doe—came out of the woods. Her appearance was so unexpected, her form so exquisite, that even the onrushing Manrico paused and turned.

She had great, soft eyes and long lashes, and a face like a deep song. She walked forward, her narrow legs pushing aside snow that gleamed gold in the sun’s long, final rays. Then she sounded, the vaporous whistling that signals alarm in that peaceable race.

Manrico’s ears pointed toward her. She came closer, her delicate nose questing in the air, her eyes as calm and dark as midnight lakes.

The Two felt sure that the dog could be drawn away, now that the transmitter was no longer broadcasting its order to kill. He did not understand that the animal’s savagery would not end. While he knew he could not control the dog’s mind, he could distract it the way he was doing, by appearing to be a succulent deer. He went closer, projecting every single detail of a female deer that he could recall.

Conner’s voice said, Be careful.

The Two went closer yet.

“Is that really a deer?” Lauren asked.

“Of course it is,” Terry said.

Conner took Lauren’s hand.

The deer came closer. Manrico looked from her back to Conner. He growled softly, a deadly sound. The deer sounded again, then began limping as a mother deer will when her fawn is threatened.

She was close now, just beyond the fence. Manrico’s haunches stiffened, his ears pricked forward, he whined a little. She sounded again and limped, lurching in the snow. That did it: he leaped the fence, barking and howling as he reached her and tore into her throat.

She screamed, then, and suddenly she was not a deer at all, she was a gray and in terrible trouble, being torn apart by the maddened dog. It leaped away from Manrico, one arm dangling, its head wobbling horribly.

Conner screamed and ran for the fence, but Lauren tackled him. “No!”

Sparks like fluid began spewing out of the gray. As the dog screamed and twisted against itself, the gray whirled faster and faster, until it became a dervish of sparks and flying fire.

Then it was gone, nothing left but a melted area of snow, some smoking earth, and the seared body of Manrico.

“Get in the car!” Lauren shouted.

They did, but they could go nowhere. “We have to change that tire,” Lauren said from the backseat, where she’d gotten in with Conner. “You three stay here, I’ll do it.”

“I’ll help,” Conner said.

“No,” Lauren said.

“I’ll help!”

Lauren responded: No, it’s too dangerous.

Why are you so good at this?

I’ve been in training for years to be your teacher.

He looked up at her and frowned. “I find teachers extremely boring.”

I won’t be.

Mike was still out there somewhere, maybe incapacitated but maybe not. She could not expose Conner to the long, clear sightlines that led back to that concealing wood.

Overhead, a dark helicopter appeared, a red cross on its belly. Katelyn and Lauren got out and waved and shouted, but it set down behind the trees, in the clearing where Rob and dead Jimbo Kelton lay.

Terry Kelton, who had refused to get in the car, began to cry, standing on the roadside, holding his head in agony.

Another car appeared, coming from town.

“Careful,” Katelyn said.

“Conner,” Lauren whispered. “Can you tell?”

“How can he possibly tell?” Katelyn snapped.

Conner closed his eyes and found that he could go racing down the snowy road and look into the car. It’s Paulie. They’re okay.

Thank God.

The grays made me like this?

Yes, they did.

It’s never gonna end, is it?

She smiled at him. “Do you want it to?”

He met her eyes, and she found it hard, very hard to look at him. She missed Adam.

Conner suddenly got out of the car.

“Conner!”

“It’s okay, Lauren.”

The Warners pulled up behind them.

Conner started to walk toward their minivan.

“No,” Lauren said, coming up to him, putting her hand on his shoulder. “No.”

“Listen,” he said, “it’s okay. They’re not—not affected.” He whispered to her. “Let me go.”

She released him.

He got into the van.

“You missed it, didn’t you?” Paulie asked.

“I got a picture on my phone.”

“Mom! Dad! I told you and told you, they missed the riot!” He regarded Conner, his face alight. “There was a whole huge riot in the town and the National Guard’s there in Humvees, and it’s gonna be on the network news. It was totally incredible, and you missed it, lil’ fella. Momma had to take you home.”

Katelyn leaned in the window. “Dan needs a hospital, we’ve got to take him to Berryville right now.”

FAR ABOVE, A SMALL SILVER dot glittered in the rising light of evening. The worn space inside the little craft where the Three Thieves had lived through so many long ages now was empty. The iron bedsteads where Katelyn and Dan had had their souls mingled, where Marcie had been laid, and Conner, and so many thousands of others over the centuries, stood still and silent.

As if it was alive—which it might be—the little vehicle turned round and round, looking for some place to go. The collective, at a loss, tried to understand how to replace the last triad. But who could do the work of another without training? Their minds were not flexible enough.

There was no place for the little machine, nobody to replace its triad. It hung there, left empty in the